Sunday, 5 September 2010

Have Railcard, will travel

'Walk-on' fares for travelling any distance may make rail travel look prohibitively expensive - but there are some crazy bargains to be had, especially with a railcard. We've been doing our best to take advantage of them.

A trip back from Tenby yesterday at £3.95; a three-train odyssey from deepest Eskdale, in the North Yorks Moors, to Kings Cross (with a nostalgic walk up Roseberry Topping on the way) was a mere £7.95. Take one Great Western train to Penzance, but buy separate tickets for the Exeter, Plymouth, and Penzance legs, and you can have a those last couple of hours in first class luxury through Cornwall for £3.95 until you sweep past St Michaels Mount (travel on to Lands End with a bus pass if you wish!) - skinflints can save another couple of quid by slumming it in second class.

For the north-west, a trip through Newport and up through the Marches gets you to Manchester more cheaply, comfortably, and probably better tempered than the orthodox Cross-Country route in a packed Voyager train. A separate ticket gets you to the Lakes for little more.

But one of the best bargains is the most local - and you don't have to buy in advance. Temple Meads to Severn Beach, £1.50 day return. Loads to look at on the way, too.

I'm not sure that we deserve all these age concessions. Chris Mullin mentions in his diaries how, after a late session in the House of Commons he, other MPs and a Lord or two would get the late bus from Victoria Street, along with one of the waiters who'd worked a late shift in the House. Only the waiter paid his own fare.

About this Blog

This one's from the little known Bristolian outpost of Stockwood, first settled by city expats back in the fifties. Leafy, open, and close to the countryside.... until they grub up the Green Belt and open spaces to build an 'urban extension'.

Written by an adoptive Stockwoodsman, arrived from the wild north-east back in 2004, this blog sets out to look at Stockwood and Bristol issues, mostly from a green perspective